373 Quotes by Michael Ondaatje

There always should be something hanging unfinished before a scene ends so that there’s a reason for going to the next scene.

Politically I also don’t believe anymore that we can only have one voice to a story, it’s like having one radio station to represent a country. You want the politics of any complicated situation to be complicated in a book of fiction or nonfiction.

I know the devices of a demon. I was taught as a child about the demon lover. I was told about a beautiful temptress who came to a young man’s room. And he, if he were wise, would demand that she turn around, because demons and witches have no back, only what they wish to present to you.

I am a man who fasts until I see what I want.

How can you smile as though your whole life hasn’t capsized.

A blind lover, don’t know what I love till I write it out.

I am not in love with him, I am in love with ghosts. So is he, he’s in love with ghosts.

She thrilled to open space and weather nights, as if she could never be contained or fully revealed there.

People think a bomb is a mechanical object, a mechanical enemy. But you have to consider that somebody made it.